Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/99

 Sidney drew back a step, involuntarily; the movement came of the shock with which he heard her make such confident reference to the supposed relations between himself and Jane Snowdon. He reddened—stood mute. For a few seconds his mind was in the most painful whirl and conflict; a hundred impressions, arguments, apprehensions, crowded upon him, each with its puncturing torment. And Clara stood there waiting for his reply, in the attitude of consummate grace.

“Of course I know what you speak of,” he said at length, with the bluntness of confusion. “But your father was mistaken. I don’t know who can have led him to believe that It’s a mistake, altogether.”

Sidney would not have believed that any one could so completely rob him of self-possession, least of all Clara Hewett. His face grew still more heated. He was angry with he knew not whom, he knew not why,—perhaps with himself in the first instance.

“A mistake?” Clara murmured, under her breath. “Oh, you mean people have been too hasty in speaking about it. Do pardon me.